ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space. In this week’s edition: Criteo records strong growth in Q1 2016; Adblock Plus collaborates with Flattr; New CTO for Xaxis; USD$250m run rate for xAd; Adjust expands; and Roq.ad launches API as a Service.

Solid first quarter for Criteo

Retargeter Criteo has posted strong results for Q1 2016. Revenue for the company increased 37% to USD$162.5m (£112.29m) (excluding traffic acquisition costs), compared to USD$118.3m (£81.74m) in the previous year. Net income also rose 36% to USD$19m (£13.13m) (Q1 2015: $14m).

The EMEA region represents 42% of total revenue ex-TAC, coming in at USD$68m (£46.9m) and increasing 26% year-on-year.

The company attributed the growth to the continued roll-out of their technology across devices, an increase in clients, and the expansion of relationships with publishers.

"We delivered fast growth and increased profitability", said Benoit Fouilland, chief financial officer. "This combination remains a unique feature of our business model."

According to the company, more than half of Criteo’s business was generated on mobile ads, and 760 clients were acquired in Q1, working out as the second largest quarterly addition in Criteo’s history.

For the current quarter, Criteo expects revenue between USD$158m (£109m) to USD$162m (£112m) ex-TAC, with adjusted EBITDA between USD$32m (£22m) and USD$36m (£25m).

Adblock Plus Partners with Flattr for Microdonation to Publishers

Interesting developments in the ongoing ad blocking war. German ad blocker, Adblock Plus, is partnering with Swedish micro donation provider Flattr.

At the heart of the collaboration is a payment solution to allow users to pay for free content: instead of enduring ads, users reward publishers of free content with a donation.

Flattr Plus is based on an algorithm that distributes a user-defined budget among the publishers whose content the user has consumed. According to the Wall Street Journal, Flattr and Adblock Plus take a 10% cut of the generated revenue for themselves. For the monetisation option to work, publishers have to be signed up to Flattr.

The latter may prove to be the cog in the wheel of this initiative: publishers, who rely on monetisation of their content via advertising, are unlikely to jump on board an initiative that has been instigated by an ad-blocking provider. Besides, previous experiments with volunteer donations by users in return for access to content free of charge, have mostly been unsuccessful.

Bob Hammond Joins Xaxis

Xaxis is on a roll when it comes to hiring. After appointing Harry Harcus as UK MD last week, the digital media platform has now named Bob Hammond as their new CTO.

In his new role, Hammond will head the engineering and tech ops teams. His responsibilities include optimisation of Xaxis’ technology and infrastructure, as well as development of new media and data products, and liaising with GroupM sister companies on technology strategy.

The appointment is part of a wider push to expand Xaxis internationally: “Building proprietary technologies that connect advertisers with consumers in meaningful ways has always been a core principle at Xaxis; and we are thrilled to have an executive as experienced as Bob join our team”, says Nicolle Pangis, COO, Xaxis. ”He will play a crucial role as we continue to expand our global capabilities.”

Hammond joins Xaxis from Millennial Media, where he was CTO and led R&D, as well as tech ops teams. Prior to that, Hammond worked as CTO for JumpTap and was VP engineering at Yahoo.

Strong growth for xAd

On the back of their latest financial review, xAd has just announced a run rate of USD$250m. The mobile location data provider was able to grow their revenue by 100%, year-on-year. Further numbers have not been disclosed.

“Location has become a category in itself and the most critical factor for brands in successfully engaging with consumers to influence buying decisions”, says Dipanshu Sharma, founder and CEO, xAd. “In the last 12 months alone, we’ve seen a significant global increase of capital investment into the space and predict location buying to reach the same levels of investment that mobile did earlier in the decade.”

xAd’s growth is also reflected in new hires. The company recently appointed Shashi Seth as CPO. Previously holding senior roles at industry giants Google and Yahoo, Seth joins recent new hires Panos Zampetakis as regional sales VP and Ori Carmel, VP of sales marketing.

Adjust Expands to Singapore and Brazil

Mobile attribution and analytics provider 'adjust' is pushing their global expansion. After recently opening offices in Paris and London, the Berlin-based company is now expanding to Latin America and adding another office to their Asian operations.

With clients already on the portfolio pre-opening, the new Brazil branch is located in São Paulo and headed by Ricardo Feldman. Singapore represents another yet-underserved market; however, it “plays a key role in our strategy to help educate mobile marketers on the need for a solid mobile app-attribution and analytics solution”, says John Sardelic, managing director AU/NZ & Indonesia of adjust.

Including their new offices, adjust have thus opened four branches in the space of two months.

Adjust is currently present in 11 locations across the globe. The company has 100 employees and analyses for international clients such as Microsoft, Rovio, and Loovoo.

Roq.ad Launches EU-Privacy Compliant API as a Service

Berlin-based Roq.ad reacts to the recent EU privacy changes and launches a privacy-compliant cross-device API as a Service. With its offering, Roq.ad hopes to satisfy the European advertising community’s demand for a more holistic, user-centric approach to digital advertising and content delivery – while adhering to EU laws on privacy and data safety.

Co-founder and CTO Bartek Bogacki: “From a tech perspective, this shift to an 'API as a Service' is the future of the industry and will become the industry standard.”

Integration with the Roq.ad API allows customers to offer cross-device use cases, such as cross-device retargeting, cross-device storytelling, cross-device global frequency capping, cross-device customer journey analysis, and cross-device audience or segment amplification.